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Sleep Apnea Is Tied to Cell Loss

Reuters News Service

Updated Aug. 9, 2005 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- People who die in their sleep may stop breathing because they have lost too many brain cells, U.S. researchers reported.

Sleep apnea -- a condition in which people stop breathing for long stretches of time in their sleep -- sometimes may be caused by the destruction of cells in the brain stem, where autonomic functions such as...